Laundry treating appliances, such as a washing machine, may include a basket defining a treating chamber for receiving and treating a laundry load according to a cycle of operation. The appliance may include a device, such as a load cell, or implement a method to determine an inertia of the laundry load. The inertia can be very useful information for algorithms run by the appliance during the cycle of operation. As an example, the cycle of operation may include one or more steps during which liquid may be removed from the laundry load, an example of which is a spin extraction step where a basket holding the laundry rotates at speeds high enough to impart a sufficient centrifugal force on the laundry load to remove the liquid. The inertia may be used, for example, to determine when to end the spin extraction step or a maximum spin speed of the basket for the spin extraction step.